Trinamool Congress, TMC, inflation, price rise, TMC on inflation

Kolkata: The Trinamool Congress on Tuesday expressed concern over the continuous rise of prices of essential commodities, especially onion, fuelling inflation to a six-month high of 6.1 percent in August hurting the common man.

"The common man is not interested in jargons like WPI (wholesale price index) and CPI (consumer price index). They are more concerned with the reality API (Alu (Potato), Piyaz (Onion) index)," Trinamool Congress leader and MP Derek O' Brien said.

Saying that the government needs to set right the API, he observed, "Many hours were spent in Parliament discussing price rise. The Finance Minister in his reply gave assurances which have turned out to be hollow. A statement was made on the floor of the House that high onion prices was only a short-term problem. But the truth is that despite all these speeches, the price rise is still hurting housewives," he said.

Attacking the Congress, O' Brien, also TMC chief whip in the Rajya Sabha, said, "In this season, the Congress is talking about alliance for the next Lok Sabha election. Which party would want to ally with them now that they have been taking so many anti-people decisions one after another?"